What’s your type? There’s a quiz for that

I love doing personality tests, body type quizzes, reading about what my date of birth could mean for my destiny, and all manner of other could-be-bull multiple choice time-wasters.

Thing is, even if I don’t believe I should avoid chicken due to my blood type (B+) or that the location of the planets at the time of my birth will impact my career prospects, I still feel like I learn a little more about myself each time I have to look within, make a choice and tick a box.

I recently discovered my ayurvedic type is “Pitta”. Apparently I should minimise my consumption of eggs, garlic and spinach and get more into cucumber. Sorry inner self, that’s not happening. But what I did learn doing this one is that this type overheats easily (yes), prefers aggressive competitive sports (BodyCombat is totally my new favourite, behind lifting weights that is) and that if I’m out-of-balance, I can be short-tempered and argumentative (no comment).

At work, we use the Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument (HBDI) to dig a little deeper into people’s personalities & behaviours and it’s always fascinating to sneak a peek at someone’s chart, especially if you find you really connect – or clash – with them. I’m a 2111 for those in the HBDI know. I already knew that I avoid fiddling with statistics and sums but that I’m an intuitive, creative, right-brained kind of character. What I didn’t realise though was how into order & organisation I am. Doing this test showed that I’m just as comfortable writing a to-do list on fresh stationery (drool) as I am having a deep & meaningful conversation with a colleague while standing in the queue for the microwave. True story.

The Myers-Briggs personality test is a good one too: I’m an ENFJ, along with Barack Obama, Abraham Lincoln and Oprah Winfrey. My contemporaries and I are charismatic natural-born leaders (clearly they all got a little more of that special sauce than I did) but can be overly sensitive to criticism and worry too much. Google is your oyster to find out more once you know your type.

I certainly don’t think knowing your type in any evaluation is the be-all of life but I do like collecting the data all the same. I truly find them fascinating.